From the editor:

Alice knows she should be happy. A charming twenty-eight-year-old with a successful catering business, she's always dreamed of a rose-covered cottage in the English countryside, filled with children and animals and home-cooked meals. Her favorite attire is comfy jeans, her best manicure features garden dirt under the nails. But when her teenage crush-the wealthy, dashing man-about-town Joe Chambers- wants to make her his bride, Alice is more than willing to play Cinderella to Joe's prince. Never mind that he wants her to change- a diet, ice-blond highlights, stilettos, snooty gallery openings- and that he's allergic to nature and kids. She tells herself she's happy to sacrifice for love, and besides, with Joe's stunning good looks and high-profile career, every woman in London wants to be in her shoes.

But that's just the problem. And despite Alice's efforts to be the perfect wife, Joe soon reveals a penchant for being hopelessly unfaithful. When a notorious indescretion with a female colleague forces Joe to transfer to New York, Alice's life turns upside down - and she must decide how much Cinderella she can take, and whether she's ready to find real happiness on her own.



I do love Jane Green, I don't feel like this is her best piece, but it certainly is a solid read.

thanks so much for the trade!

I suppose I take these books to heart far too seriously then the author intends.

I found the concept that a self-assured, stable woman like Alice would give up her career, hobbies, and everything happy in her life for a manipulative and unfaithful man, that she would change her appearance, her lifestyle, her goals and herself to become his trophy wife....well, that totally bothered me. And womanizing Joe, who seduced every woman who crossed his path and grew bored with her soon after the conquest, totally disgusted me. I just wanted to slap Joe across the face for not appreciating his wife for who she was inside, and for not treating woman in general with the respect they deserved. And I wanted to knock some sense into Alice for being blind to what Joe was doing to her, and almost losing herself in the process.

I'm glad I stuck with this book past the London phase, because once they move to New York and Connecticut, the story makes a meaningful turnaround. Alice starts standing up to Joe, and being true to herself. She creates the life of her dreams, and finds inner happiness. And Joe gets what he deserves in the end too.



*reserved for sleepingdebbie for postage*

RELEASE NOTES:

sending to sleepingdebbie

RABCK from valentina1209 - thanks!

The characterization in this book was great, but the plot was "oh-so-predictable". This is the first Jane Green book I've read, and it was a little charming (but also a bit annoying) to see all the British jargon and expressions throughout. However, it was a nice excape book to read lying on my bed with the windows open on a pleasant holiday weekend.

Reserving for a chick-lit bookbox coming my way soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

placing into Flakes' chicklit bookbox

I chose this book from Flakes's Chick-Lit Bookbox because I loved Jane Green's Bookends, even though I hated Jemima J.

From Publishers Weekly
In bestselling British novelist Green's sixth novel, a less-than-perfect London marriage disintegrates stateside. Alice loves her husband, the dashing Joe Chambers, even though he works late and travels a lot—he can be so wonderful (when he's around) and she still can't believe he picked mousy little her. (Of course, he transformed her into a blonde-highlighted, Jimmy Choo–sporting sophisticate first.) Blind to Joe's incessant philandering—even after an office sex act gets him banished to New York—Alice accepts his guilt gifts and hopes for the best. She doesn't want to leave her London life, but she's always loved nature and the rustic life, so Joe buys, in addition to a Manhattan apartment, a house in fictional Highfield, Conn. As the prologue warns, it's not just any house; it belonged to (fictional) 1930s writer Rachel Danbury, whose novel The Winding Road blew the lid off the town with its saga of infidelities. "Does history repeat itself?" Of course! Green tracks, in great detail, Joe's further infidelities, Alice's dissatisfactions, their fights and reconciliations; she also dips into the POVs of Josie Mitchell (Joe's lover) and Emily, Alice's best friend. Alice is mostly sympathetic, but for someone who thinks of herself as "a post-feminist child of a feminist," she sure bends over backward to please the snake she married. The one plot twist, involving Emily and her beau, Harry, is sweet but predictable. Green's style relies heavily on exposition, and while her prose is clean, her story is padded—kind of like one of those sexy bras that rat Joe likes.

From Booklist
Alice Chambers has a life most women fantasize about. Married to Joe, a rich businessman who showers her with presents and takes her to exclusive London parties, Alice appears to have everything anyone could ever want. But before she was a glamorous wife, Alice was a shy wallflower who loved running her own catering business. Joe encouraged her to change her look and her interests, but at heart Alice dreams of a quiet life in the country. Joe, on the other hand, loves life in the city, especially the bevy of beautiful women who catch his eye. Joe wants to be faithful to Alice, but he just can't help himself. When Josie, a beautiful, sophisticated colleague finally gives into his advances, Joe is thrilled, until an ill-advised romp in the office reveals their affair. Joe's bosses promptly transfer him to New York. Alice, who doesn't know the reason behind the transfer, is upset until Joe promises her the country house she's always longed for. But as Alice starts to rediscover her old self, she and Joe grow farther and farther apart, and Alice finds herself attracted to the unlikeliest person--her best friend's boyfriend. This novel is as charming as Green's Jemima J (2000) and Mr. Maybe (2001), proving her mastery of the chick-lit genre.

Set in London, New York City, and the fictional town of Highfield, Connecticut. (Alice and Emily go to an unnamed bead shop in South Norwalk -- aka SoNo -- CT, that's just like Beadworks.) I saw the end coming a mile away, the narration got preachy (a la Jemima J.), and the gender politics are effed up. But this was an OK weekend read.

RELEASE NOTES:

The amazing your-book-fairy saved my bookbox when SueFitz finally unstalled it after five months, so I'm starting a new chicklit box to pay it forward.

Picked out of editorgrrl's chicklit bookbox. I've read 2 other Jane Greens before but didn't think they were that great. Decided to give her another try before giving up on her completely.